This course strives to meet two goals:

-To provide a lucid and engaging introduction to research and professional practice in building technology, as illustrated by the core Building Technology faculty.

-To prepare students for thesis research.

Faculty presentations will be organized as a series of topics, each 1-3 weeks in length. These sessions will consider problems through a combination of readings, discussion, experimental or analytic investigation, and design projects. Topics, drawn from the research interests of the instructors, may include building energy simulation, design of insulating materials appropriate for developing countries, airflow simulation, analysis of the failure of structural materials, and development of design tools for architects. This term there will be considerable emphasis on the concept of sustainable buildings.

Student presentations are a very significant part of the seminar. This course serves as a thesis preparation course for SMBT and Ph.D. BT students. It also serves as the methods course for those SMArchS students interested in technology. It is essential for BT students and highly profitable for SMArchS students to start their graduate education by grappling with the challenging problem of clearly defining an area of intellectual inquiry suitable for a thesis. To that end, students will be asked to both develop a research topic and make two oral presentations and one written report on this topic. For SMBT students, the written presentation will serve as a thesis proposal. For Ph.D. BT students, the written presentation will serve as a required example of writing proficiency.

Building technology may be described as a body of scientific knowledge important to the design, construction and operation of buildings. It is not a static field. As is appropriate at a research institution, knowledge of building technologies is expanded through the investigations of faculty and students. This seminar is not an overview of fundamentals, which are taught in detail in other courses, but instead focuses on the research enterprise itself, the methods by which new problems are tackled and knowledge is expanded.